“You come for Mother’s Day? I make something very special.”
He smiled at her. “We’d love it, Mrs. B.”
The doorbell rang, and Casey bounced up. “I’ll get it!” She came back with an unhappy expression on her face, which she quickly wiped off. “Aunt Agalia and Uncle Konstantinos are here.”
And after them trailed four of their nine kids, although kids was a misnomer. Cressa, the youngest was seventeen, while Alax, the oldest male, was twenty-three.
“Gia to kaló tis iméras!” Ma and Poppa said, and my aunt and uncle returned the greeting.
“It means ‘for the good of the day,'” I told Wills.
“We can’t stay long,” Aunt Agalia said. “We’re going to Bellanca’s to celebrate the day.”
“She’s their oldest daughter,” I murmured.
“I’ll need a score card.” Wills grinned at me. “Your family is almost as large as mine.”
How little he knew.
“We wanted you to meet Daria.” Clinging to Alax’s arm was a young woman I didn’t recognize. “She is Alax’s girlfriend.”
Ma and Poppa made a fuss over her, although Casey seemed to keep her distance.
I rose to my feet. “This is William Matheson.”
Ma was suddenly nervous. “He’s a…friend of Theo’s. William had no place to spend Easter, so Theo brought him for a visit.”
I noticed that my aunt and uncle put the three younger girls behind them and glared at me. Uncle Konstantinos said, “If we’d known—”
Poppa went red in the face and snarled something in Greek that sounded like, “What’s in the past is in the past.”
Well, he and Uncle Konstantinos had never been very close.
Wills was effortlessly charming Aunt Agalia. Although I knew he wasn’t happy with the situation, he was willing to go along with Ma’s announcement that he was just a friend who had no one to spend Easter with.
I had the world’s best fiancé.
I excused myself to use the bathroom, and Alax sneered at me. Too many years had passed, and I was too old to cross my eyes at him, but I was tempted to. He’d always been spoiled and obnoxious, and it looked like he hadn’t grown out of it. As much as Ma said we had to love family, I was willing to make an exception for him.
I used the john, flushed and washed my hands, and opened the door. Alax was standing there.
“That was quick. You must have gotten really fast.”
“Excuse me?”
“Shooting up.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Uncle Eryx told us why he threw you out.”
I stared at him. Poppa would never tell anyone I was gay. He could barely get the word out of his mouth, let alone address his only son by it.
“Just you make sure you stay away from my sisters, you…you junkie!”
“What?”
“Don’t act innocent. The whole family knows you do drugs—crystal meth, crack cocaine, all of it! You’ve shamed us all.”
“And Poppa told you this?”
“He had no choice. It wasn’t as if we didn’t notice when you weren’t there to celebrate any of the holidays with us.”
“When?”
“After you ran off. After he caught you shooting up and threw you out. Just you fucking remember…I’m watching you. You even look at my sisters,” he hissed, “and I’ll kill you.” He turned on his heel and stalked back into the living room.
I followed him and stood in the doorway. Daria’s expression was almost avid, but I dismissed her, glancing from one relative to another, to Poppa and Ma, finally meeting Wills’s gaze.
“What’s wrong?”
“N-nothing.”
He would have gotten to his feet, but I shook my head. He turned his gaze to Alax. He’d seen my cousin enter the room ahead of me.
Alax curled his lip. Did he think my lover was my dealer?
Wills relaxed back in his chair, crossed his legs, and smiled. I’d seen that expression on Vince’s face on occasion, and I wasn’t surprised when Alax went white in the face and jumped to his feet.
“Ma, Pop, we gotta go.” He grabbed Daria’s arm and bolted out of the room, ignoring her protests.
“Yes, we’d better go,” Aunt Agalia said. “Bellanca will be expecting us. I’ll talk to you later in the week, Dianthe. Kaló pasha.”
Ma raised her eyebrows. “Kaló pasha.” Happy Greek Easter.
Poppa walked them to the front door, and when he returned, he looked…guilty?
Jesus, I hoped Wills hadn’t noticed. “Uh…Why don’t I take you for a walk through the neighborhood, Wills? We’ve got time, don’t we, Ma?”
“Not more than twenty minutes. Acacia, you will help me.”
“Yes, Mama.”
“Come on, babe.”
Uncle Konstantinos’s Chrysler was just pulling away from the curb. Alax had taken his own car, and his girlfriend was already in it, but he was eying the convertible Wills had rented. When he saw us, he sauntered to the driver’s side of his Hyundai and got in. He let down the window, stuck his arm out, and flipped us off before peeling away, leaving rubber behind.